Merciless epithets are just one reason to watch last night’s episode of HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver — the primary being his face-to-face interview with Edward Snowden. “Uncumberbatchable” was the six syllable term Oliver coined in his warm-up act to describe the uncharming Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who is apparently so bereft of likeability that not even the gifted character actor Benedict Cumberbatch can (by Oliver’s review) imbue his character with any grace. But the searing candescence of Oliver’s satire—and his Assange put-down is certainly putting the Twittersphere in stitches—is just an invitation to treat. The . . . [more]

When you shop for a contractor for a home renovation, you are often reminded about the need to ensure your contractor has third party liability insurance and workers’ compensation insurance – just in case.

Do you ask that same question when you shop for a lawyer outside of Canada? Do you remember to ask if the foreign lawyer carries professional liability insurance? And do you know what his/her coverage is? Imagine this. A 40-year-old client’s husband dies in a plane crash in the United States, the result of alleged negligence by air traffic controllers who fail to identify a storm . . . [more]

Each Monday we present brief excerpts of recent posts from five of Canada’s award­-winning legal blogs chosen at random* from sixty recent Clawbie winners. In this way we hope to promote their work, with their permission, to as wide an audience as possible.

This week the randomly selected blogs are 1. The Court 2. Administrative Law Matters 3. Legal Feeds 4. Western Canada Business Litigation Blog 5. Lee Akazaki

The Court
A Prosecution “Littered With Errors”: Drugs and Guns in R v Shia

In R v Shia, 2015 ONCA 190 [Shia], the Court of Appeal for Ontario considered an appeal . . . [more]

Having been a criminal defence lawyer for over fifteen years, there’s no better professional feeling than the teary-eyed embrace of a client after hearing a “not guilty” verdict. As wonderful as it is to bask in the glow of a job well done, feelings of elation tend to fade quickly followed closely by some variant of the question, “now who is going to pay for the hell I just went through?”

Clients who pose that question often have in mind a particular witness or complainant who was the driving force behind the prosecution. Inevitably, disappointment follows after the client is . . . [more]

Alternative Business Structures (ABS) is all the debate right now in Ontario, with a current discussion paper released by the law society. Over 40 responses were received from various organizations and stakeholders. The interim report presented to convocation in February included a wide range of views on ABS, from strongly for it to staunchly opposed.

The incentives for adopting ABS appears to primarily be for the purposes of attracting capital and promoting access to justice. The report references an alternative to plain ABS called ABS+, to focus specifically on how this capital could be harnessed to address those . . . [more]

For the next while the Friday Fillip will be a chapter in a serialized crime novel, interrupted occasionally by a reference you might like to follow up. Both this chapter of the book and the whole story up to this point can be had as PDF files.

You may also subscribe to have chapters delivered to you by email.

MEASURING LIFE
 
Chapter 5
Hard Feelings

Last October, John Claydon wrote for SLAW about the work being done by Canadian lawyers in Cambodia. I thought I would follow the thread by providing an overview of the system and legal education in Burma/Myanmar.

In 2012, the University of Oxford was encouraged by one of its famous alumni, Aung San Suu Kyi, to work with the University of Yangon to revive its undergraduate education programme. After more than 30 years, the regime was opening up to the outside world. Yangon and Mandalay Universities were allowed to resume undergraduate education, which had been banned in the wake of . . . [more]

The Law Library of Congress in Washington recently conducted a survey of its staffers to find out what their favorite legal terms or phrases are and why.

Among the results are:

• in custodia legis
• proprio motu
• amicus curiae
• res ipsa loquitur
• estoppel
• force majeure
• Miranda warning
• pettifogger (!)

One employee’s entry was for “in loco parentis”:

In loco parentis [in place of parents]. When I see this term, I see not the Latin word for “place” but the Spanish word for “crazy,” as in “parents make you crazy” or “in parenthood, craziness.” I think of this term whenever my

On March 6, 2015, the Ontario government published its action plan aimed at addressing sexual violence and harassment in the province. “It’s Never Okay: An Action Plan to Stop Sexual Violence and Harassment” recommends changes to the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA) to deal with workplace sexual harassment prevention and training. . . . [more]

As a librarian, I’ve been trying to avoid talking about libraries in this column. Mainly because there is already a legal information column on Slaw and I wanted to keep talking about “true” law school issues.

Then I realized I was being an idiot and part of the problem that plagues libraries.

What sparked my realization was reading a couple of closely timed items. Item the first was a article on Above the Law about Washington & Lee School of Law’s Strategic Transition Plan. In reference to the plan’s “Operating budgets will be reduced by 10 percent in 2015-16 . . . [more]

How do we as a society decide who is responsible to pay for access to justice initiatives and to what extent? Who sets those priorities and through what lens are those priorities ordered?

Does the fiscal responsibility lie solely with government? Is it the job of government to ensure that all those seeking to access and enforce their legal rights are able to do so, whether through legal aid programs or advocacy services? Many in the legal profession seem to think so. An argument I’ve frequently heard typically goes something like this: We don’t ask doctors and dentists to work . . . [more]

A favicon is the small image that you see beside a web address in a browser tab. Similar images are sometimes used with social media names. Slaw, for example, uses as a favicon “Sl” in a particular font, Harrison Pensa uses its “HP” design (which, by the way, is a registered trademark), and my own blog uses my initials.

Because they are so small, they must be simple. If someone has a simple logo to begin with, it might be usable as is. But more complex logos won’t work. They need to be simplified, or edited so only a portion . . . [more]